Language Games, Speech Acts, and Modes of Being

Language Games

A language game is the use we make of a term to mean something. For example, the term "white" can be used to mean, among other possible uses, "white is the clearest of all colors."

Therefore, the set of language games in which a term appears would be the meaning of that term: the meaning of a word is its method of use.

• Each of the "language games" in which a term appears is the ruling that indicates the "logical" or "grammar" of that term: what makes sense and what does not make sense to use that term, moves allowed and which are not.
• These rules are further instructions for learning this term: learning these rules involves learning the contents of that term and understanding their conceptual load, i.e., knowing how to use it correctly.

Speech Acts

A speech act is what we do when we say something when we communicate with others. For example, in a situation of normal linguistic communication, the speaker, beyond simply saying something, will attempt to state something. They will have a question, a promise, or a greeting for the person who listens, and so on.

• When we do an "act of speech," we intentionally impose words on the issue of conditions of satisfaction (illocutionary force) that tell us what conditions in the speech act are met.
• Each act of speech also has constitutive rules that indicate what must be done to realize the "speech act."
• Suppose I say, "It's raining." In this case, under normal conditions, I am making an assertion or a "speech act" declarative. Statements or assertions, true or false, attempt to portray a state of affairs of the world.

Then the conditions of satisfaction of such speech acts are satisfied if what I say is true. Therefore, saying, "It's raining," I agree with the truth of my statement, and I accept the logical consequences of my statement, which are not denying what I said (consistency), providing evidence if I am asked (evidence), and speaking honestly when I say it (honesty).

Modes of Being-in-the-World: Understanding and Finding

Understanding

• The human being is delivered to its existence, i.e., it must accept and assume responsibility for this: there is a project, a "may be," on which to project possibilities through which to realize that existence.
• As "to be," the human being is primarily "if possible," not so casual, but always, it is something that is not yet. Anticipate what will be from the possibilities in which to realize its being.

Finding

• To be "thrown" into existence and have to be like it or not means to man himself immediately intimacy within a certain emotional tone about himself and how he receives the world.
• In moods or vital temper, man "finds" himself, i.e., his life or his existence always a certain way. In the vital nerve, we suffer the impact of success or failure that we have to pursue the meaning of this existence, and yet the vital nerve "opens" if this existence is "good" or "bad," as "meaningful" or "nonsense."